Forensic Accounting Services
Financial Investigations, Audits and Reports
We have helped businesses of all sizes in all sectors to investigate their financial statements, documents and transactions and to report back on innocent or reckless mistakes, deceptions and frauds of all degrees..
What forensic accounting is about.
Forensic accounting is a meticulous process of viewing, investigating and interpreting financial records and statements and ensuring that they are true, fair and accurate. As we know often in life, mistakes are made of both an innocent and of a reckless nature. These mistakes can be very sizeable and can lay undiscovered for many years and in fact may not be found at all. If this was the case it could affect your profits, reserves and in fact your survivability. Consider the consequences of your staff, your reputation and your business as a whole if you lose considerable amounts of money. On the other hand consider the benefits of being able to recover sums of money owed to your business. Forensic accounting near me is about analysis, investigation, audit and discovery. Search for forensic accountant near me or forensic accounting near me to find an expert.
What can forensic accounting discover?
Forensic accounting services can be thought of as a deeper look at your financial records which delves deeper to discover if all what is stated is fair and true. So what can financial audits of this type discover and why doesn't an ordinary financial audit do the job? One only has to look in the press over the last 20 years to understand the frauds and collapses of organisations that had been through normal Companies Acts Audits and to ask why. Simple, the audit through a Companies Act mandate is really just a sampling of transactions from a much larger population. It can discover errors and frauds but it evidently misses many serious issues. We also should question the relationship between Company Auditor and the companies that engage them. Total independence is a very good starting point for investigation. Take the time to find a forensic account near me or forensic accounting near me.
Incomplete financial records.
Many of our financial investigations include a detailed look at incomplete records which can sit within balancing suspense accounts and often transfer from one year to another. Often the reason is the system of single entry book keeping that is utilised mainly by smaller businesses that causes a lack of completeness along with the possibility of error. If this was a significant transaction it could hide the liquidity, solvency and profitability of the business which many stakeholders have a reason to expect that it is accurate. We can immediately convert them to a true double entry system that will leave no entries in suspense accounts.
£190 billion lost annually to Fraud in the UK - National Crime Agency
Investigation into customer satisfaction scoring.
A unique aspect of forensic accounting that we engage in is to audit customer satisfaction scores to ensure that they are accurate and objective. The reason is generally that many organisations reward their boards, management and even operatives based upon customer satisfaction indices. We can track through scores, customer or supplier sample choices and investigate any segregation of duties leading to the bonus payments. One step further is for us to run a whole and device a new customer satisfaction survey, once again with independence and correct sampling methods.
Financial audit into sales, purchases and nominal ledgers.
A deep financial audit will interrogate all the major ledgers in an accounting department. Within the sales ledger we can investigate the timing of the sale, bonuses paid upon those sales, customer credit ratings, customer identification and customer purchase orders supplied to the company for that transaction. We look at the bad debts and bad debt provisions around your ledger to look for patterns and errors. Within the bank reconciliations we will investigate payments received from debtors. The same applies to suppliers and creditors where financial payments are investigated and matched to banks, receiving banks, cut off dates, purchase orders and contracts. The nominal ledger work will investigate asset purchases and disposals, shares and debt, tax and pension provisions, contingent liabilities and financial statement consolidations.
Analysis, Modelling, Investigation
Engage a committed, discrete and professional financial accountant to analyse your data, conduct financial modelling and also undertake financial investigations into your accounts, accounts department or transactions.
Financial transactional audits.
Often painstaking work because of the information being distributed into different systems. The need for a transactional flow from initial contact through to the payment of the transaction is a strong proven method. Often this financial investigation will climax with a reconciliation between different systems. An example here could be our work on a major PLC pension fund valued at £1.3 billion. The information was on 2 very large databases and neither reconciled. The conclusion identified errors such as input, fraud by pensioners families still claiming for a deceased member and also the wrong payments to the wrong people at the wrong amounts. Satisfyingly after the project the 2 databases were reconciled and the Company had confidence that future payments were correct following procedural changes. Forensic accountant near me or forensic accounting near me will help with your audits.
Forensic accounting business consulting.
Our forensic accountant business consulting service is an audit of people, procedures, processes, systems, culture and strategy. This can discover blockages, silos, in efficiencies and future problems. To analyse how it works now and how it should work will discover amazing opportunities for the future which we identify as the performance gap. The performance gap is often a shift into blue ocean thinking which helps the organisation to discover new opportunities and areas for growth which takes the thinking away from the ultra competitive to the sparsely competitive areas of product development and marketing to new followers. It removes old and redundant cultures and networks within the firm. We undertake with another pair of eyes and thought patterns.
Financial investigative mystery shopping.
A new form of financial investigations into the concept of mystery shopping. To have detailed evidence of transactions conducted either online or offline is a powerful strategic lever to access culture, human attitude, customer care and general all round satisfaction. It can be conducted on your own organisation or that of a competitor. We also have experience in conducting research on government departments and quangos. Focus can be directed into one particular area or department or over many satellite sites. We look for satisfaction, product or service quality, employee experience, the handling of complaints and grievances and follow up procedures. We conduct these experiments in a discrete, anonymous and confidential manner.
Business plans by a freelance accountant
Our freelance accountant can produce your business plan to suit your outcome requirements of the document. Your needs may be for equity funding, seed capital, bank finance, alliances or joint ventures, management control, employee information or many other reasons. It is a report format with graphics and can also be produced as a powerpoint/keynote and even in a marketing based video format. This service is conducted in a confidential non disclosure format and will emphasise the resulting outcome with the reader so you may require several versions to suit each occasion. Most plans and business advice here will highlight the executive summary, the structure and description of the business, market research and strategies, personnel including the management team and the crucial financials from p&l account, balance sheet and cash flows.
Is there a forensic accountant near me?
We are often asked if there is a forensic accountant near me and our answer is the same, we cover all areas with the use of technology and advanced communication systems. So in fact there is a forensic accounting service near you and we are currently accepting a few new clients. You have the final choice (according to current working conditions) whether the service is to be conducted on site or remotely or a hybrid version of the two. Forensic accounting, financial investigations and deep financial and management audits are sound methods to discover if you or your business has been subject to fraud, error or mistake and then we can supply the evidence to help recovery.